You're the Bomb

“You’ve reached West Coast Adventurers Academy, this is Head Committee member Dr. Fili Klause, how may I help you?”

“Hi, yes, can you tell me what is required to enroll my daughter in wizardry studies? She was thinking about studying for heavier combat or becoming a monk, but we have found recently that she has quite a knack for a couple of cantrips she picked up from our neighbor.”

I sighed. Quite common, really, that she would want to study magic. Most do these days, even though they’re often under-trained for non-magical combat. I responded, “If you don’t mind sir, can you tell me how many years she has before reaching adulthood?”

The person on the line grunted impatiently. “It’s ma’am. We’re dwarves. And she’s 44.”

“Ah, shit-- my bad, ma’am. We don’t have too many dwarves applying to the magical studies. Please forgive my rudeness. Anyway, the legal age of adulthood for dwarves is 50 years old, so she has to wait until she is 46 before she can begin. It’s our policy to wait until a person is nearly adult age before beginning their training, and even then starting only with self-defense. This, I believe, is the reason our academy has the lowest mortality rate and highest competency rate among all the other schools on this side of the globe. Other than that, all we require is that the tuition is paid in half before beginning and that she has the proper equipment before her first day. This call will be followed with an instant message with everything you need for her to get started.”

“Thank you, Dr. Klause. Enjoy the rest of your day.”

“And you as well, Miss.” I hung up the phone and sighed, leaning my head back in my chair. How am I to balance my enrollment rates? Wizardry makes up nearly four times the number of students as any other study, and clerical studies are at an all-time low. Who’s going to learn the art of healing?

Frantic knocking interrupted my thought process. “Dr. Klause!” Heavy breathing followed before a female voice managed another breathy, “Dr. Klause. Please, come quick.”

I stood and opened the door to my office. In front of me, bent over, was the winded artificing department head, Jeanne Wildebron. She turned, large red curly hair swinging back, and beckoned me to follow her back down the stairs. We turned corner after corner and walked long hallway after hallway past numerous classrooms in the magical studies wing. We passed clerical studies, sorcery labs, and various lecture halls until we reached the artificing hall. There’s one room I don’t want to go in. Please don’t let it be so. We strode closer and closer to the office I feared entering until we stood right outside of it.

“Jeanne, I don’t want to go in here. Please just tell me what the problem is.”

“We found an unmarked brown paper box in Onyx Riveniera’s office. As soon as he saw it he told me, so he should be working out of my office for the time being.” She poked my chest, with a knowing look. “You can’t hide from him or what you said forever.”

“I know. I just didn’t want things to be weird if we had broken up on bad terms.”

“And this is better?” She shook her head. “Nevermind! Go talk to him AFTER you deal with the box.”

I rolled my eyes and cautiously opened the door. As Jeanne had said, there was an unmarked brown paper box, wrapped in twine. Every instinct told me something was wrong here.

“So,” I asked, “what do you already know about this box?”

“Nothing, sir. Mr. Riveniera came straight to me, and I ran straight to you. Nobody’s had time to run any kind of detection spell on it.”

Quickly I cast a protection spell on both myself and Ms. Wildebron before entering the room, and I picked up the box. I nodded for her to follow me, and we walked to the nearest spellcasting lab without a classroom inside. The one in the artificing wing was in use, so the nearest one was in the caster’s wing, nearest to the divine pact lecture hall. Being the warlock’s casting lab, this was probably the safest room to check out the box. Seeing as they often have some of the darkest magic due to their pacts with higher beings, most often those who favor trickery, we regularly have to repair and reinforce this room anyway. A quick glance around, and I can already see multiple scorched craters in the walls, floor, and ceiling, presumably from practicing eldritch blast. Carefully, I place the box on the table furthest from the hallway and other classrooms and begin casting identify.

“Shit. This is… Shit. This is an incredibly powerful bomb. On the hand of Azuth, I cannot believe I just carried this past students… I…”

Ms. Wildebron backed up in fear, and her voice trembled. “So what are you going to do, Dr. Klause?”

“Jeanne… This is beyond me. I need you to bring me the alchemy instructor.”

She ran out of the room and returned with a tall, lean man with dark cropped hair and soft eyes. A man who, only months before, I had left alone in the middle of the night. I slowly walked up to him.

“Onyx…” I said, quietly. Then louder, “In this box is a very powerful bomb. By what I could detect, I can only assume a master in the arts of alchemy, but you know I’m no alchemist. So you need to take a look.”

He approached the box, not having looked at me since he entered the room. I wish I could tell him how incredibly sorry I am. That I regret walking out on him the night of our second date, even though I was head over heels in love, and knew he was too. That I wish I had just said screw it, screw the rules, screw it all because I am still in love with him. Being together would be worth the risk of being demoted, and more than worth the risk of things being weird if we broke up on bad terms because things are already weird and it’s my fault. But now is absolutely not the time for this.

I cast greater protection on Onyx Riveniera, leaving a faint blue glow around him, brighter than the one around myself and Ms. Wildebron. “I hope that will be enough if anything goes wrong.”

His voice was smooth, but flat in his reply. “Can’t say I’m surprised you still don’t fully trust in my capabilities.” There was a twinge of hurt in the end.

“I just want to be safe.”

He responded to this with a quiet, “hmmph.”

At this point, my head was down, though my eyes were still on him and the box. I don’t think I’d ever seen him at work before. His hands were running another detection spell so that he could see for himself what we’re working with here. After about ten minutes he walked out of the room, and shortly returned with a leather brown toolkit.

“I think you’re right about this being some very high-level work. It’s just barely above my own capabilities,” began Onyx. “But I should still be able to defuse it no problem.”

I sighed in relief. He sliced into the paper with a small knife, cutting the top of the wrapping off and turning it to ash in his hand. He slid the knife under the lid of the box, barely lifting it, and leveled his head with the opening to see the inside.

I whispered to Jeanne, “Jeanne, get mage hand ready to pull him away from the box in case it explodes. I have a terrible feeling we’re missing something.” I then whispered most of the incantation for ‘dome of invulnerability,’ readying it for if the bomb starts to go off.

Onyx spoke again, “It seems there’s a wire connected to the lid, spring-loaded and set to spark when the lid is opened, even if very slowly. This spark would ignite the highly explosive powder inside. It’s not something I’ve seen before.” He slowly inserted the knife and moved it around in the box. “That should do it, but we still need to dispose of this powder.” He stood, and only then did we all realize he had missed something.

I released my spell, encasing us in the dome, and Jeanne pulled Onyx to us just barely in time. The box exploded with a deafening boom. Lights came crashing down from the ceiling, the tables slid across the room, and a hole was blown in the wall to the courtyard.

Jeanne said quietly, “I thought you had done it.”

“Fili’s gut said I would miss something, and I did. I think there was a second, far better-hidden mechanism.”

Jeanne left the dome and ran down the hallway to block off the area for repair, and to inform the students that everything would be okay. A few seconds passed, and the sprinkler system went off.

Onyx looked up. “That ought to be fixed.”

I looked at him, waiting for him to look back at me. When he didn’t, I said, “I’m so sorry for that night. I wish I had never walked out on you like that.” I poured my heart out to him. This was the first time we had really seen each other since that night, and everything I’d wanted to say, everything I’d felt, and everything he meant to me spilled out. He finally looked at me, looked me in the eyes, with tears running down his cheeks. When I had finished speaking, I just looked at him, not daring to move closer or say anything else.

And for the first time, he kissed me.